The Hair of the Dog
by mebh
Summary: After Breda's wild stag night, Roy wrestles with the many dangers of 'the morning after'.  Return of Olly and Lia Mustang


**Disclaimer: I don't own it. I don't, I don't.**

In a bid to try to recover myself, I have decided to put Roy through an even worse hangover situation. Thanks to Megami Ze for supporting me through this dark, dark day. Also in my tender state, I'm sure there are a million errors but I struggle to care... bad, bad, I know.

Return of Olly and Lia!

And eh... not for the faint of heart.

* * *

Surely... _surely_, it couldn't be the morning already.

Roy cracked an eye open and immediately regretted it. When had light become so offensive and 'in your face'? With a groan and a small, cautious shuggle of his hips, he tried to settle into slumber again. He was foolish though, to think that such a thing as peace could be found in his house. Seconds after he first woke, a racket of coughing sounded from the doorway.

"Daddy..." A small, rasping voice called.

Lia had been sick with the flu for two days now and her poor throat was in tatters. After a snot-wet sniff, she called for her father again.

Indulging in a lion sized yawn, Roy managed to open both eyes.

"Your skin's all grey." Lia said simply before breaking into another coughing fit. Each sharp hack sounded like a klaxon to Roy and he tried, he really did, to muster some sympathy for his youngest child. Finding his reserves of fatherly goodwill depleted, he did what every good man does in situations like this:

"Where's mummy?" He asked, his voice sounding in worse condition than his daughter's.

Lia whimpered a little before padding towards him, her small feet leaving indents in the plush carpet. With a nose absolutely dripping with mucus, she heaved herself onto the bed next to him and lay her little head against his chest.

"Mummy's sick in the toilet." She whispered.

Of course, Roy thought. Here he was, a ruined man from self inflicted illness, while his heavily pregnant wife was struggling through her morning sickness. With a sigh, he sat up – willing to face the day purely because Riza had managed to soldier through.

"Come on, Li. Let's help dad feel human again." He said, awkwardly detangling himself from the child and slipping out of bed.

Lia nodded and allowed herself to be hoisted onto his hip.

As soon as Roy was upright he realised 'vertical' was a terrible idea. He wavered as he went, and actually blushed a little when he felt his daughter's questioning gaze on him. He was innocent – it wasn't his fault he came home sideways.

Of course he couldn't have missed Breda's stag night. Of course he couldn't decline that first glass of sloe gin. Of course, when the meal arrived, he had to order his favourite red on the menu and equally, when he was finished had to treat the table to a round of digestive brandy and the 1910 bottle of champagne. Then the next bottle was, of course, a given. But did he really, really have to bring the whole shower of reprobates back to Madame Christmas' for a 'lock-in' with an open bar? The last thing he remembered was singing _Oh, You Beautiful Doll_ to a bottle of Drachman vodka while Breda slept on the bartop. Havoc, he remembered with a scowl, disappeared sometime earlier with no shoes on and lipstick on his collar. He didn't know who he was more disappointed with: his sister or his lieutenant.

He was broken from his reverie by the most ungodly noise coming from the kitchen. The din almost had him falling down the stairs. Entering the room, he grimaced at the increased volume and the sight before him.

Olly was standing squarely in the middle of the room, pyjama shirt tied around his head and baking rings on his wrists. He was currently occupied in beating a wooden spoon off a tin pot. The icing on the cake was his chanting.

"Daddy is up! Up! Up! Up! Daddy is up!" He called loudly while Hayate barked excitedly at his side.

The room spun as Roy marched forward, Lia still clinging to his side. Freeing one hand, he snatched the spoon from Olly.

"Enough." He said, frowning when he felt a brewery's worth of booze shift in his belly. "Mummy needs peace."

Olly's sharp black eyes danced as he took in his father's haggard appearance: dark circles under the eyes, dusting of stubble across the jaw and skin like the hide of an elephant. He smiled and raised one of his baking ring clad wrists before smacking _it_ down on the pot instead of the spoon.

"Mummy is sick! Lia is sick! Daddy is sick! Sick, sick sick! Olly is big and strong and - "

Roy growled then whimpered as he felt his stomach lurch. Stars danced in front of him for a moment and it took him three or four seconds to organise himself enough to grab the pot off Olly and slam it down on the high, stone countertop. The resulting noise was gunshot-loud and equally unnerving.

"M-mummy's in the bathroom?" Roy asked weakly, his voice barely perceptible over Hayate's continued barking and yipping. Old as he was, Riza's precious canine was still energetic enough to make a nuisance of himself. His teeth fixed on Roy's pyjama bottoms and he started tugging ruthlessly on them.

Seeing opportunity in the distraction, Olly took up his chanting again, banging his baking rings tongether now.

"Mummy's sick in the loo-loo. Lia's got the flu-flu. Daddy's going to spew-spew!"

Heat raced up Roy's neck as his jaw grew slack – Olly could have a point: he was in serious trouble here. Riza had better get out of the bathroom quickly.

"Darling," he began, turning his head to speak to Lia, "Daddy's going to put you-"

He didn't have the opportunity to finish as the girl threw her head back and did an almighty sneeze straight into Roy's open mouth.

Olly's chant broke away as he burst into a fit of raucous laughter. Lia's eyes began to water, embarrassment catching her at what she just did to her father, but Roy was in no position to notice.

Fluid raced into his mouth and after a couple of loud, hollow burps, he discharged a shower of hot, boozey vomit in front of him. There was one major, _major_ problem.

The dog.

He puked on the dog.

His wife, who was pregnant, now had a small black dog covered in his sick.

Lia gasped and put a tiny hand to her mouth. Olly's laughter halted abruptly and his mouth popped open in a perfect, shocked little 'o'.

Hayate, who didn't quite know what to do with himself (because who would?), released Roy's trouser leg and looked up at his master. A few chunks dripped from his muzzle.

"Oh my god."

There had never been any silence as profound and as deafening as that in the Mustang household at that moment.

Hayate, who finally recovered some wit did what all dogs do when covered in something they would rather not be covered in. He shook.

"Ah!" Roy screamed, nearly dropping Lia in his effort to stop the dog.

Olly too had lost his cool as he was hit by a spray of his own father's sick. He wondered if he was still young enough to forget this part of his childhood. Sadly, he doubted it.

Turning this way and that in uncharacteristic panic, Roy finally freed himself of Lia. What he didn't realise in his frantic state is that he had deposited her in the sink.

"Daddy!" Olly bellowed and stamped his feet. He held his hands aloft and a couple of strings of matter dripped from them.

Roy by this stage had managed to catch the dog and now held him under one arm, trying his best not to unleash a second wave of puke on his family.

"She's going to kill me." He muttered. "Right. Think. You're a soldier. Face this like a man, Mustang. Okay-" He said strongly, dog against one hip and a hand firmly on the other. "We're going to take part in an Amestrian military tradition kids: a good, old-fashioned cover-up."

Lia, chubby legs poking upwards from the deep sink blinked once and tried her best to hold in her next sneeze. Those things were dangerous.

* * *

Riza stood in front of the bathroom mirror and studied her tired, drawn face. She must have been in the bathroom for nearly 30 minutes. Her due date really couldn't come soon enough. She had been told that morning sickness only happened in the early stages of pregnancy – well, that was a myth.

Still though, at least she would have company in her misery today. When she opened the door at 5am that morning, her husband virtually fell through it. She tried not to think too much on the large plant he had clearly stolen from someone's garden on his way home. "Flowers for my flower," he had said. Or rather, that's what he had tried to say – she thinks.

Emerging from the bathroom, she wondered why the house sounded unusually quiet.

She passed down the hall, thinking peraps that Roy was feeling better than she expected. Maybe he had taken the kids out?

When she reached the kitchen, she realised how naïve that notion really was.

Roy stood with his back to her and was dressed only in his briefs. He was scrubbing furiously at something. Disturbingly, _that_ was not the most unusual thing about the tableau. In the large 'farmhouse' sink, were – not only her children – but the dog as well. Neither child seemed to be wearing any clothes and Olly was sporting a large dollop of suds on his head.

She cleared her throat.

The muscles in Roy's back leapt and held their place. It was at least 5 seconds before he turned around. Six black, doleful eyes now watched her. Olly shook his head wearily.

"Do I want to know?" She asked tiredly.

Roy swallowed and gingerly reached back to pet Hayate.

"You really don't."

* * *

Thankee :D


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